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After a long coexistence with COVID-19 in the previous three years, people raise the awareness of hygiene and health at the same time. Elderly consumers need supplements for the nutrients that the body lacks, while young consumers need supplements to compensate for their busy lives and poor eating habits.
This research was conducted based on the social media performance across the Chinese supplement industry from Jan 2022 - Dec 2022 with data driven from MediaLens.
1) Top-performing Chinese Supplement advertisers within the industry in Q1 - Q4 2022 according to number of contents, engagements and average engagements were 草姬, 位元堂, 維特健靈, 樂道 (Chinese Pharm), 御藥堂, 蟲草大王 and 太醫殿.
Although 蟲草 is the most common product of most Chinese supplement brands, 御藥堂 and 蟲草大王 has occupied the largest proportion of 蟲草 market already. Surprisingly, the other top advertisers chose to promote other hero products of their brands, e.g. 燒脂控, 益生菌, 五色靈芝, 珍珠膠原美肌飲 etc.
2) One of the biggest event happened in Chinese supplement industry of 2022 was 張敬軒 Hins Cheung became new ambassador of “御藥堂" who is much younger than other two existing endorsers 米雪 Michelle and 苗僑偉 Michael. He can attract more younger consumers and contribute higher post engagements.
3) Top 100 hashtags by engagements for Chinese Supplements in 2022 was shown below. 位元堂 having the largest number of contents and highest post engagements. The top hashtags included #位元氣衛健康, #萬寧獨賣 and #免疫力, which means these hashtags were used successfully and draw attention from target audience.
4) Product diversification is important in the supplement industry because female-targeted products are always in need, especially body-slimming and skincare products. Therefore, 草姬 and 位元堂 has seized the opportunity and launched the products successfully.
The top advertisers with highest number of contents of 2022 were 草姬 (350 contents) and 位元堂 (331 contents), which were the top advertisers with highest budget for ad posts (HK$1-2M/year). 草姬 has focused on its body slimming product 燒脂控 (54 contents) while 位元堂 focused on 湯包 (51 contents) and 珍珠膠原美肌飲 (43 contents).
5) Using publishers to deliver a brand's message is the most effective way to reach a large portion of the target audience. The top publishers with a focus on health & medicine content were Medical Inspire, UrbanLife Health and Health Concept, which have a more accurate health- concern target audience with higher buying intentions for Chinese Supplement.
6) 萬寧出位價 is one of the commonly used marketing strategies to stimulate higher sales. For example, 草姬, 樂道, 位元堂 and 御藥堂 also used this “one day pricing strategy” to attract loyal customers to purchase higher quantity and attract new customers to try the products.
7) The most popular micro influencer is Ta Choi, who has published 26 Chinese supplement contents in 2002 including 位元堂, 草姬, 御藥堂, 維特健靈 and 華人藥業. Many top brands are still willing to choose her although she promoted many different brands in the Chinese supplement industry. It was because her contents are very detailed with high quality testimonials which can attract audiences to purchase.
8) NMN products raised rapidly in the supplement market in 2022 and this trend is expected to continue into 2023. NMN ingredients are now being used in a variety of products including beverages, skincare products and cosmetics. Marketers can consider allocating more budgets on the NMN products and keep promoting the benefits of NMN on social media to raise public awareness.
The photo sources for this content include MediaLens and the internet.
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